


Sixty-Four

by Desdimonda



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Goodbye, Pre-Overwatch dissolve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 15:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6860542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desdimonda/pseuds/Desdimonda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercy hasn’t heard from Genji in almost three days. She cannot sleep, think, and is sick with worry. At last, he returns. Or so she thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sixty-Four

Sixty-four hours. **  
**

Sixty-four hours ago they had lost contact with Genji, his link to Overwatch severing, at his final words “ _It is done_.”

Sixty-four hours of pacing, of a shred of fitful sleep, disturbed by the slightest of noise; by the whisper of a word, her eyes springing open in the hope that the words were his. That the noise were his steps. That it was _him_.

But it wasn’t.

Mercy awoke this time with a start, her dream a mess of vague images. It shadowed a recurring dream she suffered on and off from her years as a medical student in a community hospital. The hospital had been subjected to a terrorist attack simply for its values. She had tried to save everyone. Oh, she had tried. But she couldn’t. Lives were slipping away, beneath her fingers, and she had tried.

Shaking away the images and rubbing at her weary eyes, Mercy rose from the sofa, pushing off the thick, fleece blanket. Winston had insisted she at least have a sofa put in her laboratory if she was going to treat it like a home. And he had further insisted that she get some sleep.

But how could she sleep now?

She sank into the chair before her terminal, the several screens flashing constant updates of the world news.

_Rising tensions in London as Prime Minister leaves to attend the first emergency summit meetings in Switzerland._

_Seventh mysterious assassination in as many days. No witnesses._

_Japanese business figurehead suspected dead in home._

All of them blurred to insignificance but the last. Genji had begun to dismantle his family, and their criminal empire. Was that his father they were talking about? Mercy’s finger hovered above the news title. It shook, trembling as she almost swiped the article open. Almost.

Her vision blurred. Her hand shook. Mercy looked away and she stood from the terminal. She needed to get out and _breathe_. Her lab was stifling and the walls felt like they were closing in, inch by inch, shrouded in the white and blue haze of the terminals. She picked up her blue scarf, detailed with fine golden embroidery. It had been a gift. A gift that “ _reminded me of your eyes_ ”. Mercy drew her fingers down the soft material, woven with threads of silk. She had remembered what his eyes were like. Scared. Angry. And then as she had held his hand, the last of his breaths falling away to the veil of death, she had promised him life. And they had shone with _hope_.

Mercy pulled herself from the memory and stared at the clock. 5am. Sixty five hours.

\-------------------

It wasn’t until her feet met the damp dew of the grass did she realise she had forgotten to put her shoes on. She paused, contemplating returning to her lab for them, but she had come this far, and there was no-one else in the gardens. And in truth, she didn’t care. The dew felt pleasant beneath her tired feet that had paced, that had wandered the corridors of Overwatch HQ and her laboratory for days. And twinned with the early morning breeze, it was just what she needed.

The gardens were a favourite of Mercy’s. A retreat from the metal, technological foundations that surrounded her day in, day out, and reminded her of the world they were trying to better; the world they were trying to save. She trailed her fingers along a low hanging branch, the swathe of it’s leaves, soft, against her calloused fingers.

The sun was going to rise soon. She could see the light of it’s crest begin to stretch out from the horizon, and the birds had begun to sing, to talk, to fill the air with their sweet, melodic trill.

It was beautiful, but without him, the beauty faded; muted; and fell away before her.

Mercy reached the edge of the gardens, shrouded by the shadow of the great hanging willow, the tips of its leaves trailing into the pond. This was her favourite spot. Many hours she had spent at the ponds edge, hidden behind the willow, staring out at the horizon. People frequented the gardens, yes, but they kept to the outer edges, or the benches and paths. Mercy liked to sit on the grass, to feel the soft blades beneath her fingers, to hear the gentle trickle of water at her back.

Just like now.

The dew seeped through her trousers, but she barely noticed nor cared. All that she cared for -

“I knew you’d be here, Angela.”

At the mention of her name, at the words, at his words, Mercy scrambled to her feet, bare toes slipping across the grass.

A hand, his hand, caught her arm as she stood and pulled her carefully to her feet, steadying her body.

Mercy stared. She stared at him as she reached out with a trembling hand to touch his shoulder, his chest, marked, scored by blades. There was a bullet hole. But he was alive.

“ _Sixty five hours_ , Genji,” she said, searching his face, watching the small nuances of his body. The way the glow of his visor slit dimmed in apology; the ripple of the metallic tendons of his hands when he thought; the way he dipped his head, the small, almost submissive gesture was enough to abate her surge of anger. “Sixty five hours I waited for a word from you. To hear from you. I thought - I thought you were dead.”

“I had to go dark so I wouldn’t die,” he said, pushing that shock of hair that had fallen forward, obscuring her eyes; eyes of blue, streaked with gold.

She knew this, of course. But her rational side had been discarded, pushed aside as the threat of Genji’s demise hung so close.

“I -” she lifted both her hands to his chest, fingers trailing over the thin lines of a blade, scored into his metal skin. “I would have come with you. I would have helped you.”

Genji took one of her hands into his, drawing his fingers against hers, noticing the chewed nails, the bitten sides of her fingers, the skin torn by her teeth. “I had to do this alone,” he said, cradling her hand. “This was my burden. I could not risk your life, not after all you have done for me.”

“That is my decision to make,” she said, her words more stern that she had wished.

Genji watched her for a moment. He watched the wide eyed stare, aglow with her fire; he watched the way when she was defiant, when she meant what she said, she sometimes stood on the tips of her toes. And that shock of hair. Falling, obscuring her gaze. He pushed it back again, but this time, with a step forward, her toes sinking into the cold, dewy grass, with eyes closed, she leant into the touch.

A lovers touch.

“This was my fight, Angela. My family are ruthless, unforgiving people,” he began, his words faltering as he watched the faintest smile curve her lips from their touch. This - this hadn’t happened before. A glance, a hand hold, a smile. But she had given him life - he couldn’t expect…this. He didn’t _deserve_ this. “If they knew about you and what you mean to me, they would have used it against me - they would have hurt you.”

Mercy opened her eyes. “And what do I mean to you?”

_Everything._

Genji looked away, briefly, the wisp of the morning breeze catching the ribbon that cascaded from his head. It was tattered, the shreds of it falling over his shoulder. He wondered if the air was cold. The hand that held Mercy’s, let it fall. But he trailed his fingers along her bare arm, dappled in goosebumps. It was cold, but it was as if she didn’t even notice. The breeze coiled through her hair, loose, unbrushed, falling around her shoulders. Her eyes were tired, dark circles beneath her eyes. Eyes that had been the last thing he had seen as a human, dying. And the first thing he had seen again as he awoke to his new life and body. Her make-up was smudged, days old, and her lips dry, cracked, chewed with anxiety.

But oh, she was _beautiful_.

He curved a hand around her neck, pushing away a matted lock of hair.

“Enough that I have come to say goodbye.”

And her smile, fell. Mercy opened her eyes as the words registered. He was back, and now, he was saying goodbye? She reaffirmed his hold on his hand. Maybe if she held on tight enough, he couldn’t leave. Not without her.

“Goodbye? But you -” she paused, searching his face, the glow of his visor low. “Why?

“I thought I would feel a sense of peace, of acceptance with myself once I had sought vengeance on my family and made them pay,” he said, feeling her grip tighten around his fingers. “But my brother still eludes me, and not all of them have paid.”

“Then together-”

Genji shook his head. “I have to do this, alone. It would be selfish of me to take you from your work - from what you do, Angela,” he said, kindly, the hiss of his cybernetic fingers coiling by her ear. “Overwatch needs you; the world needs you.”

“ _But I need you_.”

At that, Mercy stepped forward, closing the breath of a gap that remained between them. Her toes met his feet, brushing against the cold metal. She tilted back her head, her wide eyes hopeful, pleading. But she almost knew what his next words would be. She could feel them stir beneath his skin; she had heard them, felt them ever since he had taken his first step into his new life. He fought with himself and his new body, often at times disgusted with what he saw, with what he felt. He felt a shadow of what he was; who he was. No matter how much Mercy had been there, nor the words she had spoken, this, was not her battle, nor even theirs.

It, was his.

Genji leaned forward, answering her silent plea, and their foreheads touched gently, metal to flesh, cold to warmth, one last time.

“I am a shade of who I was. I need to leave - to step away from Overwatch and find out who I am now, since you gave me a second chance at life,” he said, his words almost a whisper. “I want to feel worthy enough of this new life, for right now, I do not.”

“I know my words might mean little, but you are an honourable, worthy, gracious being, Genji,” she said, pulling their clasped hands to her chest, draped in the edge of her blue scarf.

Genji let slip a sigh. “Your words mean more than you know.”

_You mean more than you know._

“I thought I had found peace with myself and my body,” he continued, feeling the tremor in her hands. She shivered, the cold morning air beginning to take it’s toll. “But I was wrong. Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” she said, tilting her head to the side, watching the glow of his visor shine bright at her words. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” he said, honestly, drawing a thumb over her knuckles. “But I cannot stay here, with Overwatch. I stagnate here; I feel no change, no hope.” He paused. “Except - except when I look at you.”

A small sigh, a whimper, passed Mercy’s lips at his words. She slid a hand around his neck, fingers winding around the shredded ribbon. “Come back alive,” she whispered.

“Nothing could stop me,” he said, their hands at last parting. The first fingers of light had begun to appear, the swathe of their rays falling over her skin, her hair, catching the bright blue of her eyes. He had seen her in many ways; in her full Valkyrie suit, regal, and powerful; in her elegant evening wear for a diplomatic ball; in her business attire, addressing a conference with her latest research into cybernetics; but now - now, is the memory he would hold while he was gone. For here, she radiated a different beauty - here she wasn’t Mercy, she wasn’t Dr Ziergler, she was Angela.

“Anata wa watashi ni yori yoi otoko ni narō to omowasete kureta, Angela.” And with a bow, and a last look at her, her eyes glistened with unshed tears, he turned, and left.

**Author's Note:**

> Anata wa watashi ni yori yoi otoko ni narō to omowasete kureta = You make me want to be a better man.
> 
> I THINK, and I hope it does. Please correct me if I'm wrong. <3


End file.
